Boston aide may be Padres GM pick

Hoyer, Towers could essentially trade jobs

From all indications, the Padres seem nearly poised to take the wonder out of everybody and name a new general manager, the best bet being Jed Hoyer of the Boston Red Sox.

According to a reliable
Union-Tribune
source and several reports around baseball, the selection of the Red Sox assistant general manager as successor to the dismissed Kevin Towers is imminent. However, the Padres have scheduled no such announcement for today.

As he has from the beginning of his quest, CEO Jeff Moorad refuses to confirm or deny even the identities of the candidates he's interviewed. Also mum are the Red Sox, who wouldn't divulge yesterday whether Hoyer remains in their employ.

“We're still working on it,” Moorad told the
Union-Tribune
via e-mail last night. “We have a couple follow-up discussions scheduled for tomorrow, then are likely to move toward a decision.”

It should happen soon, because Major League Baseball strongly disfavors individual clubs making such an important announcement during the World Series, which begins Wednesday. And it would be imperative for a new GM to have the time during the World Series to get his own program and personnel in place, since the window on both minor and major league free agency opens five days after the last pitch of the Fall Classic. Also, the annual meeting of GMs starts Nov. 9.

Almost from the start of Moorad's quest, Hoyer has been considered a leading candidate. It definitely would not be an unprecedented move on Moorad's part.

When Moorad became involved in ownership of the Arizona Diamondbacks and the team needed a GM in 2005, Moorad found one in Josh Byrnes, who was an assistant to Theo Epstein in Boston. Byrnes was 35 at the time. Hoyer, who's been Epstein's top aide since 2006, is 35.

(Not merely by coincidence, too, Boston may very well be the place where Towers lands for next season. Before he was GM of the Red Sox and guided them to two World Series championships, Epstein worked closely with Towers as San Diego's director of baseball operations. Conceivably, effectively, Towers and Hoyer could wind up swapping jobs.)

As occurs in any business whenever there's a change in leadership, Padres employees are on pins and needles, wondering where or if they figure into newcomer Moorad's plans and knowing that a new GM surely would want to bring some of his own people with him. Even before the end of the season, the Padres underwent a housecleaning on the business side and Moorad made it clear that more changes are forthcoming.

Without one person in charge of baseball operations since Towers was fired Oct. 2, the Padres have been working with a three-headed interim GM: Executive Vice President Paul DePodesta, Vice President Fred Uhlman Jr. and manager Bud Black.

All three have GM experience of various degrees. DePodesta was general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2004-05, that after five seasons as assistant to Billy Beane in Oakland. Almost from the start of Towers' 14-year tenure, Uhlman was his assistant GM. After his retirement as a pitcher, Black spent four years as an assistant GM with the Cleveland Indians.